Figure 4.

ARP-1 increases brain-specific promoter activity of the mouse aromatase gene. (A) ARP-1 increases the promoter activity in a dose-dependent manner. The reporter plasmid (500 ng), pGL3aroBr, was co-transfected with the indicated amounts of pFLAG-ARP-1 plasmid (50, 100, 250, and 500 ng) and 50 ng of the internal control plasmid into CV-1 cells. The total amount of expression plasmid was adjusted to 500 ng with an empty plasmid (p3XFLAG-myc-CMV-26). The cells were harvested after 48 h, and a Dual-Luciferase Reporter Assay was carried out as described in the Materials and Methods section. (B) Effects of ARP-1 on the activity of aromatase and apolipoprotein AI promoters in HepG2 cells. A Dual-Luciferase Reporter Assay was conducted as described in (A). The mean ± SEM of at least three independent experiments is shown in the figure. One-way ANOVA showed a significantly different distribution (p < 0.0001 for (A,B). The p-value of the Tukey–Kramer test is indicated with the symbols as follows. Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences in relative promoter activity between the empty plasmid alone and that after co-transfection with the ARP-1 expression plasmid (p < 0.05). Pound signs indicate statistically significant differences in comparisons between indicated pairs (p < 0.05).